honestly, this whole 'xbox live is expensive' argument is a bit subjective (and not very convincing) if you asked me.

xbox live cost SGD88 or RM200 per year (you can get it even cheaper actually but this is what i'm paying with my cc). it's about RM16 per month or 55 sen per day.

Is this really that expensive for a service with a down time of probably maximum 1 day in year and offers a much more user friendly, integrated and stable experience? 

of course you can never argue with something that costs 0. lol. to each his own i guess.